Harley was still gazing at the book as he replied to her question. “When I first moved here from Scotland I quickly became interested in the history of the place, as you know. It wasn’t only the social history that I was into; it was the local myths, the legends, the stories. Some of those were well known. Others, they were spoken of in whispers,” he said, lowering his own voice.
“So, who was it told you about the Spinners?”
“We had a regular customer, used to prop up the bar of The Feathers every night for an hour or so. Not a heavy drinker, but always a wee bit away with the fairies, if you catch my meaning. He came with the pub, more or less. Other regulars used to laugh at him a bit, telling me he was known to be soft in the head, but harmless enough.” He shrugged. “Being a publican you get accustomed to forming opinions of people for yourself and, rightly or wrongly, those opinions are made based on how folks are when they are in here, often after they’ve had a dram or two. A barman listens to all manner of nonsense and bull dung. Goes with the job.”
“But this man spoke a very specific kind of nonsense?”
Harley nodded. “Aye, he did. Rambled on about special people who could move through time, backward and forward. Said they looked like normal people, that you couldn’t tell who was one,” here he paused and then moved his gaze from the book to look at Xanthe, “even if they were right in front of you,” he added pointedly.
Xanthe looked away, sipping her brandy. “But you never read anything about them? Not when you were reading up about ley lines and ghosts and stuff like that? I mean, I’ve read quite a lot of books about legends and ghosts and stuff like that, but I haven’t come across anything mentioning the Spinners. Or this book. And it’s not written as a textbook. There are no instructions or factual accounts. Just stories. All about different people and different times. Don’t you think it’s odd you’ve never found anything written down about them, not with all your research?”
“A secret society doesn’t go about broadcasting its own existence, now, does it?”
“You’ve never mentioned them before.”
“We’ve not known each other long, hen. You have to work up to that level of crazy.”
“Is that what you think they were, though? Apart from crazy, I mean. An organized group, not just a bunch of random individuals?”
“No, I don’t think that’s what they were, hen. I think that’s what they are.”
“Yes, I think so too,” she said, not quite picking up on what he said. Instead she opened the book, leafing through it to find a relevant passage. “Here, listen to this: ‘She had not yet been fully accepted into the order.…’ Though it doesn’t actually give it a name. And here, again: ‘After returning from his third journey he was admitted into the fold, acknowledged as belonging wholly and properly.…’ It’s a bit obscure but it does suggest some sort of organized group or society, don’t you think?”
“Oh, aye, it does.”
“So how does anyone get chosen for it? What are the requirements for members? I just wish it made things plainer. It’s supposed to be really important, like the Spinner’s bible, I was told!”
Harley narrowed his eyes at her. “Who told you, lassie?”
Xanthe hesitated. “I can’t really explain. Just someone who knows a bit about these things.”
“So why are you here talking to me instead of them?”
She took another gulp of her brandy, studying the book again, opting for a silent response. She wanted so much to fully confide in Harley, to share everything so that she didn’t have to deal with it all herself anymore. But it was a big thing to talk about. Did she know him well enough? Would he understand? Would he even believe her?
Harley didn’t seem surprised that she was reluctant to give an answer to his question. He tried another tack. “A bible, ye say? Well now, I’m no religious scholar and have ne been to church since Annie marched me up the aisle, but as I recall the Bible is all stories, and that’s a rule book of sorts, is it not? The answers you need are in those tales somewhere, you just have to find them.”
“But how? I mean, the stories, the drawings, they are all so … I don’t know, random. How am I supposed to make sense of it? I mean, listen to this bit.… ‘She had traveled so very many times before it had become second nature to her. Her first faltering steps as a Spinner were but distant memories. Her early fears and apprehensions faded. Now she could spin with confidence, with faith in her own abilities and skill forged in the furnace of costly experience.’ What cost?”
“I do not like the sound of that,” Harley murmured.
“It would be helpful to hear what mistakes this girl made, but there’s nothing more written about her story, not before this point. Some of the drawings make sense, like here, look, this seems to be a map of the south of England, don’t you think?” She chose a page and angled the book so he could better see the image.
Harley leaned in, narrowing his eyes. “May I take a look?”
When Xanthe nodded he put down his glass and carefully took the book from her. He turned the pages slowly, his eyes widening as he scanned the text. “Astonishing! I could spend all night reading this.” He glanced up at her. “But you won’t want to let it out of your sight, eh? Don’t fret, hen. I’d be reluctant to part with such a thing myself.”
She shook her head. “When I think how close I came to throwing it out … Now I couldn’t bear to part with it. I … I don’t think I should.”
“That’s understandable. How would you feel about me photocopying some of the pages? Not the whole thing, but a chunk maybe? That way I could be getting some of it read and putting my mind to it.”
“Great idea.”
They left the bar and went upstairs to a tiny room in the accommodation above the pub. There was a desk sagging slightly beneath the weight of box files, in-boxes, paperwork, and so on. Harley muttered about neither he nor his wife having much time for admin as he cleared a path to the printer and put paper into it. “Right, which bit shall we start with, hen? Which story do you think is the most enlightening?”
“I wish I knew. There’s one about a man who spins for the first time and ends up getting stuck for ages in the past. That might contain a few ‘how-not-to’ moments. And there’s another about an elderly woman who traveled all the time, like she was taking a bus. That one makes it all look straightforward. I don’t suppose there’s much point doing the maps, though there is one that has marks on it that look suspiciously like ley lines. You’d be the best person to make sense of that.”
As she flicked through the book and selected the right page she felt Harley tense slightly. It was only then she realized she was giving herself away. She had told him simply that she was trying to find out about the book. Or possibly the Spinners in theory. What she had just said suggested she wanted to apply what she could learn in real life. She closed the lid of the scanner gently onto the opened book. “Can you switch it on?” she asked, looking up at him.
To her relief Harley said nothing. He merely leaned across and pressed the buttons required to get the scanner going. There was a soft whirring as the machine sprang into action. They waited, watching the flash of light beneath the lid. Harley put his hand out to catch the copy as it was fed out of the printer. He turned it over in his hand. It was completely blank. Xanthe felt a chill wriggle down her spine. She and Harley exchanged glances.
“Nothing,” he grumbled. “I’ll bet the bloody thing is out of ink. Let me get to it.”
She stepped aside to let him squeeze by, happy for him to check, but knowing somehow that ink was not the problem. Harley muttered oaths under his breath and put in fresh cartridges. She glanced at the doorway, hoping Annie would not become curious about all the late-night activity in her office and come to see what they were up to. It was hard enough explaining and yet not explaining things to Harley. She knew she wouldn’t be able to talk about it to anyone else. At last he declared the ink replenished and set the thing to scan and copy again.
Still the pages came out blank.
Harley scratched his beard. “Well, I’ll be…”
“Let’s try this,” Xanthe suggested, holding up her phone. They repositioned the book flat on the desk and she photographed a page. But the picture didn’t take; the screen merely showed a blurred grayness.
Harley gave a low whistle.
“Come away back to the bar, lassie. I don’t know about you, but I need another drink.”
Back downstairs Xanthe perched on a barstool again, putting her hand over her glass when Harley tried to refill it.
“I’m confused enough as it is,” she told him. She felt disturbed by the strange behavior of the seemingly normal book. She set it down between them on the bar again, sensing that Harley was waiting for her to speak. They had both just witnessed something impossible. She saw that this was a moment she hadn’t planned for, but that she could not afford to pass up on. Harley would never be more prepared to believe what she needed to share with him than he was at that precise moment. She chose her words cautiously. “You know what you heard about the Spinners, well, now that you’ve seen how weird this book is … do you think some of what’s written in it might be more than just stories?”
“Are you asking me do I believe there are some people who can time travel like Doctor bloody Who?”
Still she could not look at him but focused on the book in front of her, watching the low light of the room glint on the gilded lettering. “Yes,” she said at last, “that’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“Oh? And what might these folk use for a Tardis, d’you reckon? Maybe an old, tumbled-down blind house?”
Xanthe’s heartbeat echoed against her eardrums and she wished she hadn’t let her nerves dictate the speed with which she had gulped her brandy earlier. She had underestimated her friend’s interest in what she had already told him about the blind house. She had not credited him with a mind so quick he was already making connections between the merely bizarre and the plainly impossible. She tried to keep her voice level as she responded.
“Do you remember you showed me we have a point of convergence of two ley lines in our garden?” she asked.
“Aye. And I recall you wanting answers to questions regarding things that go bump in the night around here, not to mention taking a rare interest in that wee stone shed of yours.”
“I guess that’s what I’m after now: answers.”
Harley drained his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well then, hen, you’d best start asking the right questions. Or is it that you’re wanting me to do that for ye? Would you be waiting for me to come right out and ask, bold as brass, is that what you think you might be, lassie? Are you telling me that you yourself are a real, live, bona fide, walking, breathing, back-to-the-future, eat-your-heart-out-H.-G.-Wells, time-traveling Spinner?”
There it was. The question, spoken out loud by someone as solid and real as anyone could be. The question Xanthe had to answer not just in the madness of the seventeenth century, but right there, in her own time. She hesitated, knowing that once said, once admitted to someone in her new life in Marlborough, there was no going back. She felt a little frightened, and more than a little bonkers. But more than that, she felt a mixture of excitement and relief. Relief that she wouldn’t have to carry such an enormous secret alone anymore. And excitement, because Harley might just be the one person who could help her understand her gift. Maybe even master it.
She took a slow, deep breath, summoned up a bright smile and looked him square in the face.
“Yes,” she said. “That is exactly what I’m telling you. I am a Spinner.”
“And you’ve actually done it? Full-blown whizzing through the centuries? Actually traveling through time?”
“Yes,” she said, beginning to laugh now, hearing how completely insane their conversation sounded, and yet knowing it all to be true. “Yes, I have.”
“Christ on a bike!” Harley exclaimed before snatching up their glasses and heading for the optics again. “Don’t you move an inch from that barstool, hen. This calls for another brandy, and I’ll not take no for an answer. And then you are going to tell me everything!”
“I don’t think you could handle hearing everything,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t handle telling it all either.”
“But this is momentous, hen! Something truly wondrous.” He took the stool beside her and handed her the glass. “I’m a wee bit jealous, I don’t mind telling you.”
“You shouldn’t be. It’s not been easy. At times it’s been terrifying. Not to mention having to lie to my mother about it all.”
“Flora knows nothing?”
“She wasn’t keen on my going to Milton Keynes for the weekend; how would that conversation go, do you reckon. ‘Bye, Mum, I’m just popping off through a portal to the seventeenth century where I may or may not end up burned as a witch because someone sees me appear out of nowhere. Don’t wait up.’ And anyway, she has enough to worry about right now.”
“But still you went? You took the risk?”
“I had to. Mum was being threatened … does the name Margaret Merton mean anything to you?”
It was a long night, with so much to tell. Harley had endless questions and was reluctant to let her go at all. Eventually Xanthe had to insist. She was worried about Flora, anxious to be there if she woke up in pain again. And besides, it was curiously draining, unburdening herself, unloading all the details of her journeys back to the sixteen hundreds, trying to help Harley understand, and allowing him time to occasionally mutter oaths or gasps of amazement. She swore him to secrecy, mildly offending him for so much as suggesting he would not keep such a thing to himself. She knew he would hold her confidence tight and close. Later that night, as she lay in her own bed, fighting off her now customary sadness at having left Samuel, she recognized that she did feel somehow calmer. Somehow reassured. She had not, until recently, understood the loneliness a secret can inflict upon its keeper. At last she had someone she could talk to about all the incredible things that were happening to her. And it helped. At last she slept, and this time she was not disturbed by dark dreams or troubling visions.
The next morning Xanthe took her mother to the surgery for an assessment and a session with the physiotherapist. Flora insisted she didn’t wait for her but return to the shop. Xanthe didn’t fight against her wishes. She knew from long experience that her mother would not want her hanging around in waiting rooms. She also knew the best thing she could do for her was to take care of the business. She went back to the shop and had it open before Mr. Morris’s ormolu clock chimed ten. While she was finding places to display some of the emergency stock she had bought in a hurry in Devizes, Gerri came in, carrying a basket, and accompanied by her daughter, Ellie.
“Hello.” Xanthe smiled at the little golden-haired girl, who was blessed with her mother’s large eyes. “No school today?”
“I’ve got a tiger,” she said with all seriousness. “If you’ve got a tiger you’re not allowed to go in.”
Xanthe raised her eyebrows at Gerri.
“Impetigo,” she explained, pointing discreetly at the small patch of slightly red skin on her daughter’s cheek. “Completely harmless but very infectious, so she can’t go to school. Needs another day, apparently.”
Xanthe nodded, marveling at the way a five-year-old’s mind worked. The word “impetigo” sounded to the child like “tiger” and the patch did look a bit like a stripe. That was logic enough for Ellie.
“I saw you helping Flora into your cab,” Gerri said. “She did look a bit poor. Thought you might need a pick-me-up.” She lifted the gingham cloth on her basket to reveal a glorious Victoria sponge, freshly baked and stuffed full of homemade strawberry jam and whipped cream.
Xanthe smiled, amused at how different Gerri’s idea of a pick-me-up was from Harley’s. “That looks fantastic!” she said, taking the basket. “Mum will be back before lunch. She’ll love it, thank you.
”
“Oh, it’s no trouble. I was whipping up a batch…” She hesitated, waiting until she could see her daughter was busy examining an old tin watering can, and then went on, keeping her voice low, “And how about you, Xanthe? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, really. Mum and me, we are pretty practiced at dealing with flare-ups.”
“Even so, it can’t be easy.”
“They pass. How’s the tea shop going?” she asked, hoping to steer the topic of conversation away from herself.
“Good. Or it would be, if I didn’t have a problem with the dishwasher. Wretched thing keeps breaking down, usually at the busiest moment. I’ve got someone coming in to have a look at it tomorrow.”
“Hats off to you, running a business on your own. It’s hard enough with two of us. And you have the little ones to look after.”
“Thank God for grandparents and playdates. And the fact that both Tommy and Ellie like helping me out in the cafe. Chocolate brownies are good currency when bargaining with children. How is your lovely shop doing? Are you ready for your first Christmas?”
“I wish. We are still woefully short of stock.”
“Even after your trip to Bristol?”
“Oh, I didn’t find much there. Actually, I’m going to a pop-up antiques fair in Ditton tomorrow.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun; digging around in all those interesting boxes, browsing the stalls.… I bet there will be some good china there.”
“I can keep an eye out for suitable things for you, if you like.”
“Yes, please,” said Gerri. “I wish I could come myself.”
“I’d be happy to have you, if you fancy it. We would be back by lunchtime, so you’d only have to shut up shop for a couple of hours.…”
“Oh, it would have been so nice to have some time off, but I’ve got the repairman coming tomorrow. I daren’t leave him on his own. Got to get the wretched thing fixed.”
“Next time there’s a fair somewhere close by I’ll give you the heads-up. A bit more warning.”
Secrets of the Chocolate House Page 21